Teesside 2011 Race Report
So here we are again, it's the 1st round of the BDA
National League 2011 and we're all off to Teesside which is just a
quick run up the A1 and A19, barring the minor panic when the signs
on the A1 tell you that it is closed but fortunately it is closed
at the exact point where we get off so panic over.
The day dawned fine with glorious weather, the water conditions
were flat with just a light breeze.
15 teams from all over the country have assembled to do battle
for the first points of the season.
Everyone was a bit nervous, we have a brand new boat and some
brand new paddlers and now we are playing with the big boys in the
premier division. Have we done enough winter training? Will we do
ourselves justice having just been promoted? Will the new boat work
for us and was it worth the trip to Germany to go and fetch it?
200m races
These questions were all about to be answered as we got ready
for our first race of the day, a 200m heat. Would we take our usual
2 or 3 races to warm up before we started firing on all
cylinders.
We were drawn in lane 1 with Worcester(Premier) in 2 and Three
Rivers(Standard) in 3. With the now customary faffing on the start
due to the small amount of wind causing several resets we
eventually got away. We made a good start, the timing was good too
and the boat felt like it was running well and we stayed with
Worcester only being 1 or 2 seats behind as we passed halfway, only
in the latter half of the race did they start to pull further ahead
with us eventually finishing less than 2 seconds behind Worcester
with a time of 49.50sec with Three Rivers coming in nearly 3
seconds behind us. Our time gave us the fastest runner up spot so
we went straight through to the semis, what a result, no cheesy
reps for us.
Maybe the first race was a fluke, we'd see shortly.
After a good rest while the reps took place we got ready for our
200m semi final against Raging Dragons (P) in lane 1, Amathus (P)
in 2 and ourselves in 3. A little less faffing this time on the
line saw us get a better, more powerful start than in our heat and
we were neck and neck with Amathus all the way down the course,
they just weren't pulling away as they would have done last season
and we came in a close second just 0.86sec behind Amathus with a
time of 48.86sec, ¾ of a second faster than our time in the heat,
with Raging Dragons trailing over 2 sec behind us in
3rd. I still don't really believe this result, we
finished only 0.86sec behind Amathus, Go Conda !! Notts Anaconda 1,
Raging Dragons 0.
So the first race wasn't a fluke, we were clearly ready for the
premier division and everyone in the squad was buzzing, Mike, the
coach, was like a kid at Christmas. Bring on the Minor Final where
we would be racing for 4th to 6th place
overall. We couldn't have dreamt of this last season, wow what a
day and it wasn't even lunch time.
In the 200m Minor Final we were drawn against Raging Dragons(P)
in lane 1, our fellow promotees ExeCalibre(P) in 2 and ourselves in
3. We got away to another good start and held ExeCalibre all the
way with them only pulling slightly ahead with us eventually
finishing less that 1 second behind ExeCalibre with a time of
49.03sec with Raging Dragons coming in 3rd. Raging
Dragons were really not happy now, they were an established premier
team and we could get no where near them last season, all change in
2011. Notts Anaconda 2, Raging Dragons 0.
So after the 200m races we had finished 5th overall
from the 15 teams competing today. We were now in dreamland, we
couldn't have possibly hoped for a start like this to the new
season, especially given our usual slow start to race events. It
usually takes us 2 or 3 races to get warmed up and by then the
200m's are usually over for us.
500m Races
Now for the main event, the 500m races. Suitably rested we were
up in the 1st 500m heat, seeded 1st, against
Pershore(S) in lane 1, ourselves in 2 and, yes you've guessed it,
Raging Dragons(P) in 3. By now Raging Dragons were looking for
revenge after we beat them convincingly in our previous two
meetings in the 200m races, we needn't have worried.
On the way to the start Ian, the helm, helpfully showed us the
back of Pershore's boat as he reckoned we wouldn't be seeing it
during the race, my god he was right !! After a cracking start we
were ahead right from the start. The start was powerful and smooth
and the gear change to length was excellent, timing was absolutely
cock on as we powered ahead of Pershore and Raging Dragons and
never looked back, we kept pulling away all the way down the course
and Ian put in an early line call which was slightly surprising but
we were eventually to learn that was just because he was getting
bored stood on the back while we took the opposition apart. We
eventually finished nearly 6 seconds ahead of Raging Dragons and
over 14 seconds ahead of Pershore with a time of 2m13.75sec. What a
result, had Raging forgotten to take the handbrake off and were
Pershore paddling backwards ? With our stunning opening performance
in the 500m heats we had the 4th fastest 500m heat time
overall, where did that one come from ? So much for Mikes race
plans, he had been planning on doing 4 500m races and here we were
missing the reps again, he's only been working on them for weeks!!
Welcome to the big time Notts. Notts Anaconda 3, Raging Dragons
0.
Once again, as in the 200m races, we went straight through to
the 500m Cup Semi Finals, no cheesy reps for us. What a turn
around, we had fought all last season just to try to get into the
Cup competitions and were usually always just on the cusp and now
we're right in the middle of it, come on 2 more races to go, we
can't slow down now.
Again, after another suitably long rest while the reps happened,
we lined up for our Cup Semi Final against Three Rivers(S) in lane
1, Worcester(P) in 2 and ourselves in 3. The same line up as our
opening 200m heat. After a hard race with numerous calls from the
helm where we pushed Worcester hard we came in 2nd, a
little under 3 seconds behind Worcester and over 11 seconds ahead
of Three Rivers with a time of 2m13.72sec. Bring on the Cup Minor
Final.
So here we were, a 500m Cup Minor Final in our first event of
the season, we were fighting for 4th to 6th
place, no that can't be right we must be dreaming, were we ready
for this, it had been a hard days racing so far as was illustrated
by our quick times where even if we didn't win we often finished in
a faster time than other races were won with. Mike got us together
for a pre race huddle to talk tactics. We were up against
Batchworth(P), the defending 500m & 200m league champions from
2010, and Hurricanes(P). In our semi we were only 3 hundredths of a
second faster than Hurricanes so we all thought they were the ones
to watch but how wrong can you be ?
We lined up on the start with minimal faffing this time, which
certainly made a change from the norm, the starter called 'Paddlers
are you ready', 'Attention', 'Go' and we were off in a flurry of
flashing paddles and spray as we got the boat up and moving at top
speed with a killer start, the timing was absolutely spot on, we
were running on rails, good job everyone. What was going on, we
were paddling frantically but very controlled and with good length
as we went through our start sequence and we were neck and neck
with Batchworth, as we changed gear and went for length Ian
followed that up with an immediate call for a push and everyone
responded, we were still neck and neck with Batchworth, we were
approaching half distance and Ian put in another call to which he
got a good response, the boat was running really well by now and we
started to pull back Batchworth and all the time we could hear
increasingly frantic call after call from the Batchworth helm as he
struggled to keep their boat ahead of ours. This must have spurred
us on to give even more as we continued to respond positively to
calls and when the line was finally called everyone completely
emptied their tanks and gave absolutely everything in our bid to
win, was it enough, it was very close but on the line we had come
2nd to Batchworth by a little over 1 sec with a time of
2m11.53sec which was over 2 seconds faster than both our heat and
semi final times, Hurricanes must have been paddling backwards as
they came in nearly 9 seconds behind us in 3rd.
So we had finished 5th overall in the 500m event
in our first race meeting of the season, what a day, no one
could really believe the result. Everyone was really buzzing as we
came off the water at the end of the final race. It's amazing how
fast you can recover when you're running on adrenaline.
Overall what a day, so many firsts for the club. It was the
first time for a very long time that we had missed the 200m reps
and gone straight through to the 200m semis, so long in fact that
no one could even remember the last time it had happened and
similarly the first time for an even longer time that we got
into the 200m finals proper. Usually the 200m's are a bit of a
write off for us, last season it was the norm to do a 200m heat, do
a 200m rep and sometimes not even make the semis let alone the
finals, but not any more if this performance is anything to go
by.
What can I say about the 500m results, 5th overall,
we couldn't possibly have hoped for anything like this at our first
event. Even Aidy had nothing to complain about during the post race
huddle after our 500m semi final. It's fair to say that if we
identified any shortcomings during a race, and there weren't many,
we promptly addressed that issue during the next race and the
results speak for themselves.
We might have set the bar a tad high for ourselves but who
cares. We'll not let this be a fluke result, let's build on this
and shake things up some more. The BDA have already commented on
their website that given the results from Teesside, maybe his year
the league won't be so predictable and we're right in the middle of
that.
This is an absolutely fantastic start to the new season for us
in our new home, the premier division, and special thanks must
go out to Mike and all the other members of the coaching team, both
official and unofficial, who kept us training over the cold winter
months. A result like this makes all those chilly hours spent on
the river all the more worthwhile and must make the coaching job
extremely rewarding, not to mention extremely difficult when it
comes to picking the squad for the next event.
Thanks also to Ali for her organisation both before and during
the day and to Rob for his stats and result taking all day and not
to forget Rachel, a brilliant drummer.
Bring on London . . . CONDA Ooooooooos!
Click here for
the full set of results from
Teesside